N00302:201
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of…
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of the lost son found, is opened and applied, as it was delivered in sundry sermons, / by Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Two lines from Luke]
printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Philips, 1684
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
DOCT. The World then most of all deceives and fails, when men have the most need of help.
If the young man had now had a good Estate in his hands, as he sometimes had, he would not have been so pinched with the famine: Rich men usually rub through, it is the poor that are most oppressed in times of scarcity: or if the famine had been more moderate, he might with more ease have scrambled for some supply, but when all fails, who should relieve him? or if he had been among his friends and rich kindred, they would have so far pitied him, as not to have suffered him to starve: but he is poor, and in a far Country, and a famine raging, and now what shall become of him?
If the young man had now had a good Estate in his hands, as he sometimes had, he would not have been so pincht with the famine: Rich men usually rub through, it is the poor that are most opprest in times of scarcity: or if the famine had been more moderate, he might with more ease have scrambled for some supply, but when all fails, who should relieve him? or if he had been among his friends and rich kindred, they would have so far pittied him, as not to have suffered him to starve: but he is poor, and in a far Country, and a famine raging, and now what shal become of him?
The famine deciphers to us the deficiency or ⟨p. 86⟩of spiritual supplies, or of Soul-food: Where as it is said, that then it arose, we must take notice that things are many times described according to appearance, and not reality: This spiritual famine was there before, but the young man, as long as he had something of his own, minded it not, but now when all was spent he began to feel it: The substance of this Allegory is, that a distressed sinner shall find that the world hath no relief for his soul; if a man feel anguish and misery coming upon him, and go to the world for help, he shall find nothing there but want and distress; all the world cannot ease an oppressed soul. For further Explication, Consider.